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05/09/2014
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created by Chris Yates

FREESTYLE TIPS

Fancy yourself as an aspiring freestyler? Add flakas to your repertoire of moves with these top tips from the pros

The flaka is an essential move for any aspiring freestyler, not only as a single move but also for advancing into the world of switch moves as the sail handling at the end of many moves is almost identical. After learning the entry level moves such as the vulcan and spock, the flaka is the next trick that many sailors aspire to land and train. Although the road to learning the flaka can be a long and frustrating one, once you have landed one you will find that it quickly becomes one of your most consistent tricks that you can impress your mates with. To help you along the flaka learning process we caught up with a few of the world’s best freestyler’s to ask for their top tips:

Phil Soltysiak (Starboard / Sailworks / Dakine)

"I think the most important part of the flaka is that you never want to push the sail. Move it forwards neutrally before you jump so that it is far enough away from you that you can jump into the clew with your hips to start sliding backwards. From there it's easy."

Rafael de Windt (Hot Sails)

"The tip I would give for flaka is that you don't throw your sail against the wind but throw it half wind and when you throw the sail make sure that your front hand is stretched and that your back hand kind of against your chest."

Steven Van Broeckhoven (JP / NeilPryde / Different) "Before you go for the move make sure you bring the body over the board as you pop."

Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard / Severne) "Make sure you slide you're back hand far to the back of you're boom like with a forward.